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PARTISAN REVIEW
"my home, my fatherland, or my church," which was also tied up
with some neurotic need to dissociate himself from the conventional
world.
The OpposltlOn between "truth" and "neurosis"
is
actually a
clash of two myths, the myth of the artist as philosopher and moralist
and the myth of the messianic madman. It is the traditional split,
celebrated by Nietzsche, between the Apollonian and Dionysian
view of art: between Apollo, the god of light, poetry, and prophecy,
who stood for self-control, tranquillity, and radiance, and Dionysius,
who represented frenzy, intoxication, and mystery, and brought
art
to the edge of barbarism and pathology. In our time, however, the
distinction between the two
is
slowly disappearing, and- who knows?
-maybe some day the neurotic artist will become a pillar of society.
